


I Move The Stars For No One

by kittydesade



Series: As The World Falls Down: The Loki/Darcy Riff [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 19:59:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Covering the events of The Avengers, Darcy want to know if it's possible to love a monster and still not be a monster yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Move The Stars For No One

So, he'd disappeared. After the last argument they'd had about whether or not he was breaking up with her, first and last, but still, she wondered if he'd just decided not to argue with her this time and ditch her. It wasn't like he had to worry about her stalking him across the universe. She could barely make it out of the SHIELD research compound without Coulson knowing where she was going and what she was doing there. He'd probably gotten tired of her. He was the closest thing Earth had seen to a god in ever, and she was Darcy fucking Lewis. Human being, social engineer, and all around fuck-up when it came to relationships. His letters became more sporadic, he started to seem distracted on his visits. Then he was just gone. 

Well, fine. Screw him, anyway. 

Coulson read the requisition form with Darcy standing right there in front of him, his eyebrows slowly rising. She knew her cheeks were flaming pink, her face hot and her hands clenched into fists in her pockets. And if he asked why she looked so upset, she had no ready excuse prepared. But something needed to break. Or some _one_ was going to. She couldn't tell anyone about this, either. She had to rely that Coulson would take it on faith. Which wasn't likely, the man was born in a tiny suit with a pinched, stoic expression and one of those widgets coming out of his ear. 

"Hmm," Coulson said. 

Darcy gave him to the count of ten to explain what that meant. "Well?" she gestured. "Am I approved or what?" 

"Miss Lewis, do I want to know what you'll be doing with," he stopped to consult the list. "Ten sets of thrift store china, a hundred or so mason jars, a pair of safety goggles, a shotgun, a rifle, and, hm. This much ammunition?" he pointed the paper at her. 

"No." Flat, immediate. No, he didn't want to know. No, she didn't want to tell him. Just plain no, as if she could negate the events of the last few hours by one syllable and a glare at an Agent who had nothing to do with the causes of any of it. 

"Mmm," Coulson looked back over at the requisition form, then shrugged and signed it. And did not hand it back to her. "I assume you're qualified on these weapons?" 

"I put my license number over..." she pointed at the piece of paper he was holding, trying to grab it at the same time. Somehow he managed to keep it from her without noticeably moving, a trick she was sure he had perfected from years in ninja school in the mountains of Tibet. Or dealing with junior agents. "So? Can I take these down and get my stuff?" 

"On one condition. Come see me when you're done." And then he did, finally, hand her the forms. But he didn't let go. 

"Really?"

The man was able to convey volumes without visibly moving at all. One of these days she was going to have to ask him how he did that. "I'd guess you don't want to discuss your romantic relationships with a counselor."

Darcy gave him a second to reassure her somehow that he didn't mean what she thought he meant, but he so totally did. He knew. Coulson knew everything, of course he did, Coulson always knew everything. So she nodded quickly and snatched the forms out of his hand and bolted for the door. And was halfway down the hall before she remembered that the office she needed to turn those into was back the way she'd come.

  
  
  


People jars, had been her first thought when she'd seen the prison. She'd twitched and walked on by the hall; it looked like something out of a science fiction film. There was a plague and either someone was trapped inside while everyone turned into zombies or whatever around them, or the glass thing filled with smoke and someone came closer until the scare chord happened and the zombie threw itself against the glass. Either way, she wasn't going near the damn thing. Of course, that was until they'd locked her boyfriend in it. 

Not that they'd told her. But the halls had to be cleared while the biggest squadron of security she'd ever seen walked him to his cell, and she'd peeked out. Ducked her head back in before anyone could see her. It took her another hour to come up with a way to sneak down to see him. It took her the next three to figure out what she wanted to say. 

"Hel-lo." 

He drew it out as though he didn't know who she was. Or as though he didn't know what she was doing there. She didn't even know what she was doing there. She'd heard he'd been captured and had to come see him. Only now that she was here she didn't know what to say.

"Huh." 

There. More of a noise than a word, but that was something. And nothing that could get either of them in trouble. She'd already had done some fast talking, some bribing, and some uniform theft to get in here. All the cameras were pointed at her back, so all anyone could tell was that a petite dark-haired scientist was talking to Loki. Not a good idea, but not one that could be traced back to Darcy, either.

"Not what you expected?" Loki asked, his tone quiet and colder than she'd heard it in a while. Still nothing that gave them away. She should have known he'd be sneaky like that.

She could be clever, too. "Not really, no." It wasn't how she'd expected their next meeting to go. It wasn't how she expected to find out that something bad had happened to him. Because something must have, he'd been there and paid attention and shared all sorts of things with her and then he faded out and then he was gone, within the space of maybe two weeks. And she'd known something bad had happened to him. But she still didn't know what. And he looked different, and she didn't have the right words in her head to explain how or imagine why. Everything about him looked wrong, the same, but wrong.

He looked as though he'd stared into the heart of some cosmic secret and come away with his mind blown. That was how he looked, or at least the best way she could think of it. His eyes looked crazy and bloodshot and the worst part of all was that they weren't empty of the guy she'd fallen in love with. He was still there, he was just broken. In tiny jagged pieces.

"Sorry to disappoint you." 

He didn't look down. He didn't sound insincere, but he didn't look down or away, his eyes didn't flicker and that steady stare like something out of a creepy Kubrick movie was getting to her. Goosebumps under the sleeves of her stolen lab coat. Good thing she had left the sleeves rolled down, Loki couldn't see. He saw way too much anyway, and he knew how to take advantage of it. Somehow Darcy didn't think this time would be as benign as noticing her hands getting chapped from paper glue and bringing her extraterrestrial hand lotion. 

"You haven't disappointed me," she offered. Realizing, as she said it, that he could take that to mean her expectations were really low. She guessed that was why he turned away, turned to pace around the back curve of the room. "Just a little surprised, is all."

Loki glanced up at her, but didn't say anything. And she didn't know what to say or ask. It felt strange. Everything had to be swathed in layers of meaning and double-talk just so they could stay hidden. And there was so much more they should be talking about, a vast distance separating them now, greater than several feet and a bunch of metal and glass. That separation stirred, started to grow itself into an empty heartache. 

"Why are you..." Back, she started to ask, but 'back' would imply that she knew more about his last visit than she was supposed to. His last official visit was New Mexico. His actual last visit he'd almost spent the whole night with her. "Here?" Why are you here, that was safe. If anyone reviewed the security video. 

He gave her a pitying look. Gentle, almost, except that she remembered him being gentle with her and it didn't look at all like this. "I will be out of here soon, you know."

"I know." And how many people would be hurt in that escape? Or killed. The guard she'd given the coloring books to for his niece and daughter? The chick who considered this her first 'real' assignment and who chatted with Darcy about how everyone compared them to someone else? Men, in her case, and Jane, in Darcy's. 

Loki could kill them. Easily. She tasted her breakfast lurking and resurging at the back of her throat.

"That should please you," he frowned. Stepped closer, up to the glass; Darcy took a step backwards and immediately felt wrong for doing so. And strange. One of them had been replaced by an alien and she wasn't sure which one. 

"Why?" Because to say anything else would invite all kinds of scrutiny she didn't want. She couldn't say that it would please her if he hadn't completely lost his shit. She couldn't say that it would please her more to get her boyfriend back. They couldn't have that argument over whether or not he was her boyfriend. Because he was SHIELD's prisoner, because he had come blasting down to Earth killing and trying to enslave people. 

Darcy realized she hated him a little for that. Not for what he'd done, but for spoiling them, ruining it. What kind of a horrible person did that make her? People had died. Or been mutilated. And she was worrying about her relationships. Worrying about being in a relationship with a monster. Somehow that had been easier to ignore, what he'd done the first time, when all she'd known was that a giant silver robot thing had come down and stomped that one town in New Mexico like it was Tokyo. And somehow she'd decided that it was okay to care about him. But she couldn't decide that now, and why couldn't she? What made this different? People had died. Well, people had probably died last time, too. Not on this scale, though. And back and forth, her thoughts chasing each other around in circles, much faster and wilder than before.

Loki had started to say something but stopped, frowning again when he realized he didn't have her attention. "What are you thinking?" he asked, soft and almost like his old self. Darcy had seen this movie way too many times to fall for that. She swallowed and worked out her words, and pretended she didn't want to cry.

"I'm thinking that..." Swallow, so she didn't choke. "That nothing you say can be trusted. You came down here and killed three guards in, like, five minutes. That you keep talking about making this world a better place..."

"I can." His open palms smacked against the glass. "You don't understand. I can make this world better. More peaceful. Calm, I can make it right, I can fix..."

"You can't fix anything!" she yelled, drawing eyetracks from the security guard. Dammit. She did step forward, though, bunching a fist and resting it on the glass instead of punching it through to grab him by the throat like she wanted to. "You're not fixing anything, you're killing people. You're hurting people. You think, do you even think this is for our own good like you keep saying? Are you that bugshit crazy? Because, yeah, the guy I knew? He wouldn't believe that. Someone came down, started talking about making the world safe because everyone's going to be good little robots..." 

Loki stared at her, brows drawn together and puckered in the middle in that bemused expression he got whenever she went on one of her tangents. It was familiar and even worse at the same time, because it was familiar. Because it should have been a conversation about fan-fiction or sitcoms or Starbucks, not her yelling at him for being a megalomaniacal bucket of crazy. 

"... and _Stuttgart?_ God, could you be any more Godwin?"

He shook his head. "I don't know what that means."

"I don't believe you." On that, no, she didn't believe him. The Holocaust had been one of the biggest events of the last century; he might not know the details, but he damn well knew the leader of Germany had led an invasion into all neighboring countries and tried to take over the world for the good of the world. His idea of good. She was pretty sure she'd gone through that with him before. "I don't believe you, you are such a liar, you ..." 

"I am _not,_ " he roared back, pounding on the glass. And now they were nose to glass to nose and she _was_ crying, which gave him a moment of pause. Enough for her to keep talking.

"You are such a liar. I don't believe you're this stupid, I can't... you have to know what you're doing. You have to. You're smart, you're seriously one of the smartest guys I ever knew, you gotta know what you're doing with this, because this is dumb. This is a dumbshit move, you idiot, ruling a world of people you, you don't even care about? You don't, you're not even listening to a word I'm saying, are you." His frown wrinkled up further, halfway between incredulity and puzzlement. "You ... you're trying to get back everything you lost, I get that, you want your place back, but you're trying to get everything you think you want by tearing it to shreds. You think you're building it up, and I just..." As the fit wound down she felt like she had gone worst two out of three with Barton or one of the SHIELD combat trainers. "You're going to destroy everything. Everything you ever wanted. And I don't even know if that means anything to you anymore."

And Darcy didn't want to see if it didn't. She turned and stomped up the catwalk and passed the guard who was carefully not seeing a damn thing. Good man. If she was really lucky the people who watched the security cameras would decide to do the same.

"Stop!" 

She stopped. Even if it sounded like a command. And she turned, although she couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't give the game away. More than she had already. 

Loki's face was twisted, the way he looked only that one time when they'd gotten into a huge fight over his brother. The cynical part of her that never shut up even when she was in deep trouble wondered why she suddenly rated up there with his brother for emotional damage. She gave him to the count of ten before she asked.

"What."

His mouth worked sideways, and he started to pace. Up along the front of the glass towards her, then away again. It hadn't scared her when she first walked in, but it did now. "You can't walk away from me," he snarled. "You, you cannot, you will not wa--" And just like that, fear snapped into fury. 

"Sorry, no." Darcy snapped out. "Bzzt. Automatic fail. You lose." She stomped out with him yelling at her through the glass, and by the time she got into the hall there was silence for the second or two it took the door to hiss shut behind her.

Outside the cell room she could go down the hall and find a convenient corner to lean against the wall and catch her breath. Long enough for her to go down to her room at a normal pace instead of running down the hall, and then she could curl up on her bed and bury her face in her pillow and cry all she wanted to. Because that wasn't her boyfriend back there, or whatever he called it when he wasn't arguing with her over the word boyfriend, that wasn't the guy she'd curled up with and shared Pocky with and cried on, maybe once, and laughed with and shared some really awesome sex and even some not so awesome and just plain awkward, because it couldn't be all good all the time, right. And she knew that guy. She liked to think she knew that guy pretty well. She had no idea who was screaming at her from the cell. But when the tears dried up and she'd talked some to Coulson who, of all people, got her bursting out into tears again not once but twice. Gotten back to her room turned off all the lights against a screeching headache (and thrown up into the nearest trashcan with all the rolling around and almost falling out of the sky) she kind of thought maybe she should have requisitioned more ammo. And more breakable things.

  
  
  


She knew that if she burned everything he had given her over the years she'd regret it later, but she still got as far as dumping it all in one of those giant metal barrels and threatening it with gasoline before she put the bottle and matches away. Maybe she could bury it somewhere, like toxic waste. Dig a hole, fill it up. That was zen, wasn't it? She'd seen it in a TV show somewhere. In the end the stuff stayed in the barrel on the roof because she was too tired to haul it all back down again, and the next day she went back up to seal the lid and label it for long term storage. Over the next few days she rearranged her room, scrubbed it clean and rearranged it again until her bed was jammed into a corner, her desk was on the opposite wall where it had been, and everything looked different. So, that was good enough for now. 

Weeks passed. She avoided Jane for a couple of days because at least she could talk to Thor, and not that Darcy grudged her friend that relationship but it hurt way too much to hear them laughing and talking about Midgard and Asgard. Then Thor went back home for good and took Loki with him. Not her boyfriend anymore. He'd tried to break up with her twice and she'd refused him both times, which sounded like a hell of a backwards thing if ever she heard one, and then he'd disappeared and she hadn't entirely given up hope, she'd just missed him, but now this. Every time she went out to New York City she lit a candle at the memorial wall and prayed to whoever was listening that they'd forgive her for falling in love with a monster.

She still loved him. She missed him. But she didn't know what to think about that. 

Work took over, so that kept her going for a while, but after one of those trips she got back to her room and fumbled with the key for like a whole minute because she was crying too bad to get it right the first time. She ignored the couple of people who passed behind her in the hall and hoped they did the same, at least until someone's hands closed over hers. 

"Hey, let me..."

She'd jabbed backwards with her elbows before he got out more than those three words. Then the voice registered. "Oh my god, I'm sorry." Kind of sorry. She scrubbed at her eyes, picked up her keys, and Barton didn't try to touch her again. 

He hovered in her doorway and she couldn't bring herself to shut the door in his face. "Hey, um. Not that it's any of my business, but. You okay?"

Darcy scrubbed her hands viciously over her eyes, her keys cold against her face. "Really? Seriously?"

"Okay, I mean, you want to talk about it? Yell at me about it?" Barton offered. "Hit something?" 

" _Yes._ " Hitting something suddenly sounded great. "Not you, though." Hitting Barton wouldn't help, he could kick her ass up and down the mat. "No. Let's go out, you and me. You don't have anything to do tonight, right?" She poked a finger in his chest and used the tone she'd used on Loki when pulling girlfriend rank on him to get him to stop thinking about his revenge plans for once.

She hadn't expected it to work on Barton, but it did. "Uh. No. No ma'am," he said. Sounding for a second like Loki. That didn't help. 

"Good. I'm going to go get dressed, I'll meet you downstairs in the lobby in one hour. Or I'll send Tasha after you." 

"Yes ma'am," he chuckled, and closed the door behind him.

Bright red top and tight black pants somehow turned into a deep green low-cut top and one of those shimmery black skirts that had gold thread all shot through them, which turned back into the tight black pants and she compromised with gold glittery mascara. She very carefully did not think about what went into her color choices of the evening. Barton would be all swank in something that went with whatever she picked out, anyway.

Black. And a suit. He looked like he'd been raiding Tony's closet. "Hey, you said an hour, I thought you were..." Barton stopped. "Whoa."

"Put that tongue back in your mouth, Hawkass." Darcy poked him in the nicely sculpted bicep. "I told you we were going out. We're going out." 

"I see that. It's just..." 

"Keep up, pretty boy," she called over her shoulder. 

She knew exactly where she wanted to go, too. Maybe Barton had been there, maybe he hadn't, it had been a dive bar for a while but was trying to class itself up lately. She wouldn't have gone there if she hadn't been needing to maybe get in a fight. At least get hit on by someone so she could threaten them with Barton's muscly arms, whether or not he was paying attention. That was kind of unfair of her, she realized, finishing her first drink and stepping out onto the dance floor. 

"Maybe we should go somewhere else." She put one heeled boot on the dance floor and turned her foot a couple of times. No skidding. In three inch heels she wanted to be sure. "Are you sure..."

Barton was following her onto the dance floor. She didn't know he did that. "Hey, you wanted to come here."

For reasons that would get her yelled at, deservedly, if she told him. Darcy kept her mouth shut and shrugged. "'kay."

The DJ had a weird sense of humor. Das Ich and The Kills, okay, Rage Against the Machine, Five Finger Death Punch, and then something came on that she half remembered from that movie with that guy and someone was grinding her ass. Someone not Barton, because he was in front of her. "Dude, get off, what the hell." Darcy elbowed backwards again, which didn't have the desired effect. Going by the amount of booze in the breath over her shoulder, he probably hadn't even felt it. "Okay, that's just gross." She lifted one foot to plant a three inch spike in his instep.

Barton reappeared behind her, or at least she assumed that's who'd yanked the drunk guy's hands off of her and, when she turned, had one of them pinned up behind his back at an angle that looked like breakage was imminent. "The lady told you to leave her alone," Barton said. She could hear him because everyone else on the floor had vacated. "So leave her alone." 

"I could have handled that, you know," Darcy had worked her taser out of its holster by this time and waggled it at him. He frowned at her, puzzled, which made Darcy stop in her tracks. Barton worked with Tasha, he couldn't be new to the concept of women who could take care of themselves. Or was it just her. 

He let the guy go at least. Security was working their way through the crowd, too. "Hey, Darcy..." Barton started. She didn't think he saw them. 

"Yeah, let's go. This was a dumb idea anyway." She grabbed his hand and dragged him into the crowd, tugging him out of the club before they could get arrested for assault or something.

So they made it up onto the roof of the building instead, because Barton liked heights and Darcy liked roofs. It was cold up there, though. Her blouse didn't offer much protection against the wind, and she'd spent too much time in the club or in the climate controlled Avengers/Stark Tower to think of bringing a jacket. She sat on the edge of one of the chimneys and rubbed her arms till Barton crunched up next to her and dropped his jacket over her shoulders and head. 

"Thaaanks," she drawled, smiling.

He sat down next to her. "This is about Loki, isn't it."

Darcy stiffened. Suddenly the air wasn't that cold on her face anymore. "What are you..." 

"Coulson told us. Asked us to keep an eye on you, otherwise to leave you alone. He said he figured you were too smart to give up anything secret."

She wasn't supposed to start crying. She barely even knew Coulson. "Yeah, well. Not that smart, I gave up everything else." She really wasn't supposed to start saying shit like that. To Barton. "I didn't tell him anything. I didn't even call him. I mean, that last time, he just disappeared. And he came back and he was all..." she tried for googly crazy person eyes and claws and got halfway into it before she had to drop her forehead to her knees so Barton didn't see her cry. 

His hand fell somewhere between her shoulders, warm and rubbing in circles. 

"Stop that."

"Stop what?" he asked, quietly. 

"Stop trying to make me feel better, okay?" Darcy started out talking but ended up screaming the last few words. "Stop trying to make me feel better about caring about a guy who doesn't deserve to be cared about! He's a monster. He's a complete fucking psycho who couldn't figure out his issues so he went out, and he found someone who'd give him the really big stick and he came back and he started pounding on everyone to make himself feel better!" 

Barton's hand had fallen away during all of that. She noticed it only because when she stood up his jacket fell right off her shoulders. "Maybe he was..." Barton started, but she ran right over him.

"He was a fucking moron. Okay? Do you even know what he did? He picked a fight with his brother because he couldn't be daddy's favorite. Stupid shit, right? I mean, this is the kind of shit that you get into a fistfight over, yeah, okay, I get that, but you don't go blowing up whole worlds because you got daddy issues. Because, what, being second best in the eyes of one stupid fucking king wasn't, was enough to make everything else not important! Me, Thor, everyone else, we didn't matter! It's all about being king. Being right. He didn't care about anything else, he couldn't move on." As her energy ebbed she started to notice how much she was spilling to Barton. Hell, if it got her in trouble now, she wasn't sure she cared. "I tried ... I don't even know what I was trying to do, you know? Maybe just. No, I don't know. I guess I was hoping I could fix him, you know? And that's stupid. You don't fix people just by being in love with them."

Barton was on his feet, watching her, jacket in hand. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, the blinking neon lights made his face hard to read and she was too tired. Wait, the lights weren't blinking, she was just crying again. "Darcy." He came up a couple of steps, then closed the distance when she didn't scream at him some more and put the jacket around her shoulders again. "No, I guess you can't fix people. But you helped." 

She dug her palms into her eyes. "The hell do you know that."

"Hey." His hands clamped onto her shoulders. He shook her, actually shook her, but gently. "I kind of do know something about being in a bad place, okay? Not like he wasn't in my head."

There was something wrong about his logic, there, but she was starting to get a headache. And she was tired, and she didn't want to think about it. "I just wish he hadn't done that, you know? What happened in New Mexico, okay. That was bad, that was.... awful, but he'd stopped hurting people, I thought. I think." Maybe he hadn't, maybe he'd just taken it off of her world. That was a horrible thought. "And, okay, I did feel kind of guilty, but. And then New York." 

Barton sat her back down on the ledge. "Why would you feel guilty for being in love?"

"Because he's a monster. You're not supposed to love monsters, only monsters love monsters." She snorted. "Monsters... people who do things like that. They're not supposed to be loved. Everyone says."

"Who says?"

Darcy didn't know. "People. Everyone."

"Why?"

"Why what?" she blinked at him. 

"Why shouldn't monsters be loved?" 

She squinted at him. "Is this some kind of secret agent thing?" Hard to say how many people Barton had killed even before Loki's influence, and maybe this was something he thought about himself. 

Barton shook his head. "Okay, I'll put it another way." Though he clearly didn't like that she couldn't answer the question. "Why does it matter who you love? I'm not saying that you do anything, you were careful, you didn't compromise any operations or anything. So why does it matter what you feel?"

"I don't, it doesn't," Darcy swallowed. "Only monsters love monsters. How can I care about someone who would do shit like that, and call myself a decent human being?" 

He stayed silent long enough for her to look up and catch the tail end of that smile. "Because you're better than he is." 

"Really?" Darcy managed a warbly smile. "Cool." Then she burst into tears. For all of a minute or two, she didn't have much left in the way of crying, but she squeezed out a few more sobs and Barton held her and didn't say anything while she made a mess of his shirt. 

"I need a drink." 

"You need to go to bed," Barton chuckled into her hair. "No more drinking for you." 

"Spoilsport. Did you at least remember to bring your grappling hooks or something, so we can go down in style?" 

He shook his head. "When you said we were going out, I didn't think you meant up here. We got perfectly good roofs back at HQ."

They took the stairs. 

Barton even walked her to her door and threatened to tuck her in. Or offered. She didn't remember by the time she was drifting off to sleep, glass of water by the bed and three aspirin in her system. His jacket was still around her shoulders because the most she'd done was shuck off her pants and boots, but it felt weirdly reassuring, too, so she didn't give it much thought. Maybe she should drag Barton out again later, though. Maybe that meant he was finally getting over _him._

Probably not. Not when she couldn't think his name without crying, and even the blankets still smelled like him. Which was stupid, because even before the Battle of New York he hadn't been over in weeks. Months. And he'd never been in this bed. 

Barton's jacket. The jacket smelled like him. 

Darcy fell asleep before the impact of that could make its way through her tired brain. By the time she woke up the jacket was wedged between her bed and the wall and smelled of sweat and cigarette smoke, and not like Loki at all.


End file.
